Other people

Forty-one Francine

X was right. Butterball had not been told that I was substituting for X until he arrived at the studio Tuesday night. For a minute there was some confusion because Butterball thought Thomassy was the substitute guest. The host, Colin Chapman, thought Butterball was going to walk. The instant panic proved unnecessary. Butterball could not resist any opportunity to talk to the public, especially when it couldn't talk back, and he settled down to the proffered coffee and to another dose of the American rudeness that had put him up against a mere girl. He didn't say any of those things, but it was as clear as if he had. And it stimulated me to the best twenty minutes I have ever had out of bed. With George ensconced behind the glass next to the engineer, Colin Chapman chatted us up, then got the signal, and we were on. He introduced the subject and deferred almost immediately to Butterball, who launched into a spiel about how just two days ago he had been home for a visit and with just an eight-hour flight (first class, of course!) he had been transported from emerging Africa to New York, and since then he had talked no fewer than six times by phone to this minister and that minister back home. Colin Chapman tried to butt in a couple of times to make it a dialogue, but the only thing that worked was when I said "Mr. Ambassador" in my best stentorian contralto and put my hand over the microphone. He had to let me talk.

In fact, that was when Butterball first took notice of me.

"Mr. Ambassador," I repeated, "I have a very different idea of the shrinking world. We have seen," I said, "in recent decades, a proliferation of countries in the continent the Ambassador calls home, and in each new country, we have witnessed a growth of government agencies, a burgeoning of offices and duties and jobs where none existed, an unchecked growth of one of the most insidious forces in the modern world."

I looked up at the glass booth to make sure George was wide awake and following.

"Which is?" asked Colin Chapman brightly.

"Bureaucracy," I said, stopping and gesturing with my palm toward Butterball.

"The lady," said Butterball, "chooses to use a pejorative term for administration, the necessary functions of government if it is to keep things running."

"The lady," I said, "has a name, Mr. Ambassador."

"Francine Widmer," Colin Chapman supplied.

"Africa," said Butterball, "has found itself."

"What does that mean, Mr. Ambassador? Does it mean Africa has been found dividing itself into smaller and smaller constituencies, each with its own administrative offices, to the point where we will soon see a return in that shrinking world to the tribalism of yesteryear, except each tribe will have its own postage stamps?"

Behind the glass, George was having a good time. Butterball was trying to check his anger.

"Mr. Chapman," he said to our host, "the great leaders of emerging Africa…"

"Amin?" I asked.

"What did you say?"

"Amin?"

"I heard you."

"Are you including General Amin among the great leaders of emerging Africa?"

Butterball was fumbling his debits and credits. Privately he was reputed to despise Amin, but I had him boxed in.

He decided to ignore me and addressed Chapman. "Mr. Chapman," he said, "the announced subject of this broadcast was the shrinking world, and I do not see the necessity—"

"Of evasion," I said.

Chapman was loving it. In his job he had to play host to a multitude of horses' asses during the course of a year, and he obviously relished this one's discomfort.

Within five minutes I got Butterball admitting that his government actually had more government agencies than did the preceding colonialist government, that the rolls of government employees had increased by more than three hundred percent in the last two years because three semicompetents were needed to do the work of one bureaucrat who had the wrong color skin, and best of all, that he fully expected to be the subject of a forthcoming postage stamp. Behind the glass, George looked like a kid at a baseball game.

Toward the end, Butterball was panicking. "I am surprised," he said, "that the United Nations would employ a person so divisive, so intent to reverse progress, so intolerant of the change that is revolutionizing the world."

"Frankly," I answered, "I'm surprised, too. Perhaps I am like the Soviet dissenters, needles in a haystack, an almost invisible presence that cannot be ignored."

"Thank you," said Colin Chapman, "thank you both, but we've run out of time."

While Chapman was winding up, Butterball stoood, his chair making an awkward noise that went over the air. I stood and put out my hand. He had to shake it.

As soon as Butterball was out the door. Chapman said, "Lady, if I may call you lady, you were terrific. What a pleasant surprise. Whenever we get a substitution, it's usually a downhill omen. You gave us a fine program on a dull subject. I'd love to hear you give a speech at the U.N."

"Sorry," I said. "I'm not an ambassador. All I do is prepare some stuff for other people's speeches. They usually take the stingers out first."

By this time, George had come around to the studio and I introduced him to Chapman, who said, "This young lady of yours ought to be in broadcasting instead of over there with the fuddy-duddies." He stopped when he saw the man in the banker-striped suit come in the studio door.

"I agree," said the man. "My name is Straws. I'm glad I was in the building. I didn't catch all of it, but enough. You were splendid."

Straws shook hands all around.

"I'd like you to come and see me, if you would," he said, handing me a card. I glanced at it. He was general manager of programming.

"Let's go," said George.

I hadn't realized how restless he'd gotten, but the remark was rude under the circumstances.

"You couch things well," Straws said to me, "but under the camouflage a killer instinct is clearly visible. I can think of a dozen people I'd love to see you decimate."

Chapman wasn't happy either. Suddenly I had gone from being a good guest to potential competition.

"I'd be delighted to come and see you," I said to Straws. "I'll call your secretary for an appointment."

Come on, said George's eyes.

The engineer behind the glass opened his mike. "That was a very interesting program, Miss Widmer."

"Thank you," I said. I was ready to hand out autographs.

"Don't pay any attention to Art," said Chapman, gesturing at the engineer, "he's always buttering up potential hosts. He loves to work talk shows."

Straws nodded and left. "You see," said Chapman, "he didn't contradict me. I could smell his evaluation. I better look to my laurels."

"Don't be silly," I said. "I have no experience."

"You've just had a very successful audition, young lady," said Chapman. "It's a good thing Straws is set to give Lily Audrey the boot. He'll think of you as a replacement for her instead of me."

He has got to be kidding, I thought. "I've only heard her once," I said. "Isn't she the one who comes on like gangbusters?"

"You've got the right one."

George took my arm. Not gently.

"Glad you could come, Miss Widmer," said Colin Chapman.

I could feel George tugging.

We were hardly out of the building when he said, "You really fucked that poor man over, didn't you?"

"What's got into him? "I thought you were enjoying it."

"Sure thing. Love to see a picador jabbing spikes into a bull."

"That poor bull is the second most powerful man in his diminutive country and is likely to be its next head of state. He deserves every opportunity to get talked back to under circumstances where he can't decapitate his adversary."

"You do love the limelight," said George.

"Don't be silly. When I call Straws I probably won't get by his secretary. He'll have forgotten tonight by breakfast tomorrow."

"He won't forget."

"Now look, George, I've never seen you in the courtroom but I did see you give Lefkowitz the works. You like stage center as much as I do, and you've had one helluva lot more experience. I'm just catching up."

He took me by the elbow again.

"Please don't take my arm like that," I said.

"We only have the one car," he said.

"You can drop me at my place."

In the car, he said, "This is ridiculous. We've fucked ourselves silly for nearly a week and now it sounds like we're having an argument over nothing. The only reason I'm reacting to your sudden celebrity is jealousy."

"I'm glad you recognize that," I said. "It's a first step."

"To what?"

"You've probably played the lead every time you've been in a courtroom. You're used to center stage. You don't like cooling your heels in an audience. Or watching anyone else perform. Like me."

"Oh come off it, Francine. I don't think you're about to become a female David Frost. And I'm not about to become a stage door Johnny waiting for you the way I did tonight."

"This could be a break," I said. "Don't you want me to take advantage of it?"

"Sure."

"That sounded like drop dead."

"Well, I didn't mean it to sound that way. Look, Francine, you said you liked working for X."

"That's right. I'd like working for nobody even better. Like you."

"I work for my clients."

"You're fudging, George. When did you ever really think of a client as an employer? They're yours to manipulate, not vice versa. I'm not going to pass up this chance."

"I'll bet you're not."

Just as I'd let loose at Butterball, it came out of me once again in a torrent. "I'm glad this happened. It could have happened a year down the road, with our lives meshed. You just can't stand the idea of my finding something I can do well and enjoy more than my backstage work at united bedlam. You've got your vocation and that's enough for both of us. George, living alone all these years has made you into a self-centered, selfish, self-contained isolationist, and you've been that way too long for me or anyone else to rescue at your age."

I guess it was "at your age" that did it.

He didn't speak until he dropped me off at my parents' house. He didn't get out and open the door for me, the way he'd been doing all week long. He just sat glowering behind the steering wheel and said, "The good news I had for you tonight is that Brady is likely to have Koslak plead guilty to second degree assault. He'll go to jail. There won't be a trial."

"You're talking to me as if I'm a client."

"I am."

"Thank you for the good news."

"Please be sure to tell your father."

I got out and slammed the door. He roared off.